A in-depth look at a surprising finding: early 20th-century social reformers, seeking to expose the roots of the city’s social ills, ended up spying on the very people they were meant to assist. Working women, interracial couples, immigrants, and radicals all found themselves under the microscope of “private investigators,” usually untrained social workers or journalists. Most of those under scrutiny had committed no crime except acting outside of society’s norms. Sound at all familiar? Fronc asserts that these local Progressive-era practices helped to shape modern federal surveillance policy.

With Jennifer Fronc, assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.